Vs. Twix

Here’s the deal. With Halloween right around the corner, candy is on everyone’s mind and soon to be in everyone’s stomach. And, when trick or treaters come home with bags full of sweets, a great tradition of candy trading ensues. Like miniature buyers and sellers on the floor of the stock market, kids barter chocolate for licorice, trade caramels for gum and short sell nougat against lollipop futures. And there was a time I’d risk my whole portfolio for a peanut butter Twix…sadly, that time is no more.

Mmmm...wafer flavored wafer...

Let’s start with the basics. Twix is a combination of the words twin and sticks, which means the candy bar should probably be spelled Twicks – but I’m assuming they didn’t want the word ick in the middle of their food product. This candy bar originally consisted of a wafer topped with caramel and coated in milk chocolate. Pretty good stuff. But then, in 1983, Mars introduced Peanut Butter Twix…and it was much more delicious than the original (bonus flavor – if you lived in Poland in 2003 you could have tried the short lived and rather unfortunate sounding Orange Twix).

So, in the late eighties and early nineties, everything was good in the world of Twix. Candy lovers everywhere could enjoy this scrumptious combination of wafer, chocolate and peanut butter. But corporations tend to get restless and whenever they have a successful product that hasn’t changed in years they feel an inexplicable, unnecessary need to update it (New Coke, anyone?).

First, they suspended production of peanut butter Twix entirely. From 1997-2000, our nation entered a dark, dark period where the only variety of Twix available was caramel. Then, only seven years after bringing it back, they replaced the wafer which was….I don’t know, wafer flavored?…with a chocolate wafer. Oh, the humanity. Now peanut butter Twix was a combination of chocolate, peanut butter and more chocolate. That’s right, people, they ruined peanut butter Twix. It was no longer all in the mix.

Speaking of their slogan, they replaced that too. As of last year, it’s “Pause like you mean it.” What the hell does this mean? Someone in marketing was pretty pleased when they noticed that the two Twix bars resembled the symbol on a pause button…I don’t know why they didn’t just turn these bars on their side and make an equal sign out of them. They could have done something like, “Twix = Delicious,” formed with the two bars. No, it’s not great, but at least it makes sense. I mean, come on, how does one’s choice of candy bar effectively communicate one’s desire to hesitate with determination? And how do you pause like you mean it? I assume it involves a steely glare and firm stance and…apparently some caramel.

Thomas, put down your glasses lest you be blinded!

Yep, Twix had a good thing going, and they just complicated everything. For example, you know where Twix are made? In Cleveland. Sure, everyone’s heard of Cleveland. Cleveland…Tennessee. What?!? Even their plant location is confusing. Were there no factories available in Chicago, Wyoming or Boston, Hawaii?

So, how am I going to do it? How will I convince Twix to return to their original ingredients? Please, there’s no reasoning with corporations. They’re like toddlers with way more money and power. No, there’s only one logical solution. If I want a peanut butter Twix the way they were mean to be consumed, I’ll have to time travel back to the summer of 1983.

Ahh, 1983…Tom Cruise slid across the newly-waxed floor and into our hearts in Risky Business…Thomas Dolby topped the charts while blinding us with science…and India won the Cricket World Cup with a stunning 43 run win over the West Indies. What? You don’t remember the ’83 World Cup? Captain Kapil Dev lead his underdog squad to a surprise victory? Seriously? Nobody follows cricket? Jiminy!